


Cold

by Ashnidante



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: NaNoWriMo, Reader-Insert, Science Bros
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-04 00:01:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14580534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashnidante/pseuds/Ashnidante
Summary: When an experiment goes wrong Charlie calls her University flatmate Bruce for help. After all he had an experiment go wrong too so maybe he can help. But will that help come in time and what will be left after?





	1. An uncertain call

**Author's Note:**

> So something happened a while ago and I haven't properly been able to get back into writing since and so have decided that for the next month including the majority of May I am going to do my own Nanowrimo challenge, I'm gonna aim for 40k words by the end of that month. This is a new fic I have started just for this as I like all my other ideas too much and would want them to be written just right but this one I can be a bit more free-flow about and just follow it where it goes, so if you have any suggestions leave them in the comments and I may try to include them. Hopefully I will be updating every few days.

You bounced your foot nervously as you sat perched on the edge of your couch waiting for the call to go through. It was midsummer and a particularly warm day for it and yet you were wrapped in long pants, a hoodie and thick socks and still feeling cold. You were beginning to get worried which is what prompted your call. You figured if anyone could understand what happened and help you figure out what was still happening he would be able to. Something similar happened to him after all. 

“Hello, Banner speaking.”

“Hi Bruce, it’s Charlie, how’ve you been?”

“Charlie, hi. I’ve been okay considering, you know end of the world a couple of times.”

“Yeah I’ve seen that on the news, looks like you’ve got a great team you’re working with.”

“Yeah, they can be. Most of the time I don’t really know what we are though. How’ve you been? You still at UCLA?”

“Nah I left them a while ago, went travelling for a bit. I’ve been working on something else the last couple of years...” You trailed off now feeling unsure of yourself, were you just worrying over nothing? I mean it could just be some funny virus that’s hitting you really hard. Was it really worth it to get your old flatmate involved?

“Everything alright Charlie? You sound like something’s up? Do you want to tell me about this new project?”

You hadn’t realised your uncertainty came across in your voice that much. His offer pushed you over the edge. If it was nothing then oh well you got to catch up with Bruce and if not then... Well best to be sure “Yeah, that would be good actually but do you think we could meet up? I’ll bring some of the data for you to have a look at.” 

“Of course, why don’t you drop by the compound later this week? I’ll let security know to expect you and they can direct you to wherever I am when you arrive I don’t have anything offsite for the next couple weeks.”

“Sounds great thanks Bruce, see you then.”

“Bye Charlie.”

You finished the call and flopped back on the couch. There you go, you’d called him and you’d get some answers by the end of the week either way. Your mind felt a little clearer knowing this but your body felt just as brittle and cold. You flicked the tv on and snuggled your hands further into your sleeves trying to warm the cool digits. 

 

Bruce pulled his glasses off rubbing a hand over his face. It had been years since he had heard from Charlie but they had been flatmates through their undergrad and early post-grad degrees so had pulled many all nighters together in an effort to finish assignments last minute. She had always been unflappable even after having been up for 40 hours straight and fuelled only by caffeine with 10 thousand words left and a looming deadline she would be calm and straight forward. Always knowing where she was going with the assignment and how she was going to get there. There was never any uncertainty. 

Yes it had been years since he had seen her but he was worried. In the call she has sounded uncertain, and not just of something else but of herself. Of if she was making the right decision. If she was so unsure of something that he could hear it simply in that short call then why did she call him of all people? After their first PhD’s their fields of study had diverged so if it was something about her work that she was unsure of then why call him? She would have other colleagues that knew her field better than he and could look at the data she had mentioned. 

His eyes skimmed over a piece of equipment on which he could still faintly make out the SHIELD crest. Perhaps it wasn’t her work but who she was working for that had her uncertain? That would make more sense for her calling him, considering who he worked for. It would also make sense of why she wanted to meet with him in person if she suspected something about whom ever she was working and it was enough to get the Avengers involved then it would make sense not to discuss it over the phone.

Typing a quick message to compound security Bruce resolved to check that Steve or a couple of the others could stick around the compound the rest of the week. If she was coming in with something that needed the Avengers then it would be helpful to actually have some Avengers around.


	2. Entropy and the inevitable heat death of the universe, aka scaring Sam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You arrive at the Avengers compound and meet a few minor and major characters.

You pulled up at the security gate in your nondescript Corolla. An older gentleman pushed himself to his feet inside the booth and picked up a clipboard stepping up to your open window. “Charlotte Winters here to see Dr Banner.” You told, Stan as it said on his name tag.

He pushed up his large rim glasses and searched down his list “I’m not seeing any Charlotte here.”

“What about a Charlie?” You asked smiling up at him. He peered at you through his spectacles with a sigh of annoyance at being asked to check again but did so.

“Ah, here a Charlie W. And that is you?”

“Yip only Charlie Winters there is. Though I suppose statistically speaking there will be other people with that name especially in a large English speaking country like the USA, taking population into count I’d guess ballpark figure 40 others? Sorry rambling, yes I’m Charlie.”

He gave you a look that said he had tuned your ramble out and only needed the last three words “Go on through.” He reached back into the booth to press a button and the parking arm swung up. Following the signage to visitor parking you found a free spot and made your way into the impressive white panel and glass building.

Approaching the desk you gave the blonde behind it the same line as you had given Stan at the gate. A few quick clicks on the computer later and she was directing you to a waiting area off to the side “Take a seat Miss. Winters, we will inform Dr Banner of you arrival.” Giving her a quick thanks you stepped over to the modern grey couches centered around a contemporary art piece to wait.

 

Ten minutes later and you had pulled out your tablet to, once more, look over the data you were going to show Bruce. Normally in waiting areas you would pass the time by people watching, you always found it interesting to try to guess what you could about people just from cursory glances.

Unfortunately it had been very quiet here with very little activity going through this entrance to the complex. Apart from another older looking security guard, though this one slightly taller and thinner than the other, the blonde at the desk was the only person present to pass the time crowd watching. And two people aren’t much of a crowd to watch. 

You pegged the receptionist as a crowd pleaser people person that was head cheerleader at high school and didn’t pay attention to many of her classes so once she got out of school she found her best asset to be her people skills and so became a receptionist. The security guard on the other hand you thought seemed to be the kind of mellow guy that could see what seemed to be an alien fall out of the sky and get some pants for them for when they woke up.

After the brief crowd watching your mind had gone once more to the reason for your visit. Your eyes traced the graph lines for what felt like the fiftieth time and scanned over the analysis. While everything was technically within normal ranges they were to the outer extents of them and it was more than just the numbers that had brought you here. 

You had felt off since it had happened. You hadn’t paid much attention to the feeling for the first week but the way it persisted and had gotten worse had you worried. You weren’t sure what was happening but more annoying was that you weren’t sure if something was happening. As your mind rolled it over and over you reminded yourself that surely if something was happening Bruce would be able to figure out so. And if not? Well it had been too long since the two of you had caught up.

 

An hour and a half later you picked at the hem of your blazer. You had forced yourself to put the data way and were instead occupying yourself with a loose thread on your woollen blazer. It was the same blue as the warm summer sky outside and yes woollen. Because even in the height of summer your hadn’t felt comfortably warm this morning until you had leggings on under your full length pants, a long sleeved form fitting frock and your woollen winter blazer on. 

This was all because of one of the things that hadn’t felt right since it happened. You hadn’t been able to get warm like you should have. While everyone else in your apartment block has their air con on to cool their rooms you have your heater on. And while your friends opt for shorts and sleeveless tops you opt for two full length layers top and bottom.

Just as you got the thread pulled through to the other side to attempt to tie off the centimetre short length the most exciting thing in almost two hours happens. Someone else came down the stairs into the entrance area. A darker skinned man with a buzz cut. His smile to you showing a gap in his top teeth and that he too was a people person. Though his muscle showed that his service to the people was more likely military than administrative.

“Charlotte?” He asked with a quirked head and another charming smile.

“Hi. Charlie’s fine.” You replied standing and shaking hands with him.

“I’m Sam I work with Bruce and figured he might have forgotten to meet you. I can show you the way if you like?”

“Nice to meet you. And that would be lovely thanks.” You returned his easy smile following him back up the stairway.

“So how do you know Bruce?” He asked pleasantly as he led you through a set of doors, along a hallway and to some lifts.

“We studied and flatted together in our early days.” You entered the lift with him the doors sliding shut.

“Labs Friday.” He said to the doors and your confusion before the lift started moving and you figured it must be voice activated. Then he continued to you “So I guess you must be used to him forgetting things or loosing track of time when he’s working on something then?”

“Oh yes, we’d go down the rabbit hole for days, sometimes forgetting to eat or sleep when we really got onto something. I guess he hasn’t changed much since then.” You referenced the fact that that was clearly what had happened here. Bruce was working on a project and been notified of your arrival and meant to come down to you just after he finished this one thing; but then that one thing became another and another and another until he forgot.

“No that does sound like him and Tony. Have you?” When you hmmed? him he added “Changed much since then?”

“Uh I don’t think so.” I hope not you thought to yourself, you really hoped it hadn’t changed you.

The doors opened to an extensive corridor of labs. Glass panelling revealed banks of top of the line tech and who were you kidding, this is Tony Starks' Avengers facility of course the tech is top of the line.  
Leading you along the hall Sam continued the conversation “Well change can be good.”

“Yeah, if you can control it.”

“Don’t like things out of your control huh?”

“I’m a scientist, I don’t mind change as long as its one thing at a time and I am the one changing it and I can measure the outcomes, dependent and independent variables are my thing not random change.”

“So its chaos you don’t like?”

“Well I can’t exactly not like my area of research now can I?” You elaborated at his questioning look “I research entropy and the inevitable heat death of the universe.” Now you just got a confused look “In theory there is a constant amount of energy in the universe and it cannot be created or destroyed just transformed from one form to another. In practicality there is an element of chaos and this transformation is not perfect and a small amount of the energy is lost into an unusable form, this is entropy. And the heat death of the universe is when after many trillions more years all of the energy in the universe has been lost into this unusable form and the universe become functionally dead.”

“Uh... okay that’s cheery.” He gave a disconcerted huff of a laugh.

“Oh don’t worry, this won’t happen for many quadrillions of years yet. Besides there are plenty of other things that will get whatever is left of us before then. In about a billion or so years the sun will have boiled off all liquid water on earth so we have to be off planet by then. A couple billion more the sun will expand to the point that it engulfs the earth. A quadrillion years on solar systems will no longer exist, consumed or flung apart and the sun will be a black dwarf. Next the galaxies will disappear as the stars are thrown out of orbit or eaten by black holes. Then the protons will start decaying to the point that all the matter that used to make up life and stars won’t exist anymore. The black holes and then the super massive black holes will be the next to dissolve. And then we finally get to the period where it all just slows to absolute nothingness and that period will be longer than the entire existence of the universe up until that point.”

By this point Sam had lost the necessary functioning to continue walking as his mind overloaded on what you had just spouted off. His face seemed to be a caricature of a ‘404 page does not exist’ error message. You rubbed the back of your neck abashedly and grimaced apologetically “Sorry I tend to ramble when I have something I’m unsure about.”

Sam deflated as he shook his head out to clear it a smile returning “Gees I think I prefer Tony and Bruce’s techno-spiels, I barely catch any of those but I understood enough of your one to be scared.”

“Yeah sorry...”

You both started moving again “No it’s okay. I mean I learnt something.” You were mildly impressed, most non-scientists turned off when you gave accidental lectures. “You don’t like not having control. But you do like chaos, especially if you are measuring it and you really don’t like uncertainty. Oh and you know a lot about how it’s all going to end.”

You grinned back at him “You got me down to a T Doc.”

“Aw I don’t know about that, but speaking of people with actual Doctorates this is Bruce’s lab.” He gestured to the door over his shoulder “It was nice meeting you and interesting talking with you Charlie. See you round sometime.”

“Thanks Sam” You shook his hand before he moved off. Calling after him you added “I promise I’ll try not to give you a thesis seminar next time.” His laugh echoed back to you pleasantly as you opened the door to the lab and stepped in, yours eyes meeting a  
bespectacled brown pair.

“Bruce.”

“Charlie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I did not mean to have that much science in this chapter. I only meant to have the ten second summary of entropy and the heat death of the universe but then the rest of the conversation just wrote itself that way so I let it cos that's the point of this work for me, to just follow the words. Also while the science in this chapter is pretty spot on just a little warning that some of the science in later chapters will be being stretched a little bit but I'll probably mention it again when that happens.  
> Encouragement and constructive comments are always welcome :)  
> Also did everyone pick the two minor characters we meet, I hope they are both fairly obvious though one more so than the other.


	3. Update

So it got announced that an actor that my best friend and I really like was going to be coming to a convention in a city within range of going and so we decided to go. And of course I decided to make a new armor cosplay for the con so writing this immediately took a back seat. Also after con we went to Hobbiton so since then my mind and all my muse has been living in Middle Earth and I have been writing there. Once that fades out a bit I will pick this back up to do more of it cos I sort of like the idea I had of a couple of things that were going to happen but for now this is on Haitus as I live in Middle Earth.


End file.
